APPLY NOW for consideration for the current school year.
Hillsborough County Public Schools is accepting applications in all subject areas and has a high need for special education, reading, math and science teachers. Application Deadline is October 16, 2017.

Now hiring school bus drivers/mechanics with paid training. Register for an upcoming information session to learn how to Fast Track to an Interview today!

We know a hurricane can be frightening for adults and children. The National Child Traumatic Stress Network acknowledges that the length of recovery will depend in part upon how frightening the hurricane was, whether evacuation from home was necessary, and the extent of the damage and loss. Children often turn to adults for information, comfort, and help. Children do best when parents and teachers remain (or at least appear) calm, answer children's questions honestly, and respond as best they can to requests.

There will be a reacclimation period once we return to school to make sure student athletes are properly conditioned to prevent injuries. Practice can resume on Monday. The district will work with coaches to reschedule as many missed contests as possible.

Student Nutrition Services is able to monitor refrigeration temperatures at all school sites. SNS is notifying managers if the food has reached an unsafe temperature and the food is no longer usable. The district has procedures in place to properly dispose of the food and sanitize the storage equipment. Student Nutrition Services is working to make sure schools are stocked with the food needed to nourish our students.

There will be temporary changes to the lunch menu and food choices may be limited; however, students will still have high-quality, nutritious meals. Our Student Nutrition Services team provided 34,000 meals per day to evacuees at more than 40 of our schools serving as shelters during Hurricane Irma. We will be getting deliveries all week to replace the food used at those shelters and any food that is not usable because of power outages at some schools.

The district is working with the state to organize possible emergency meals in some schools with power through our National School Breakfast and Lunch program. Some schools are also organizing their own meals, please check with your principal for options at your school.

The district's Transportation Team is working with the Emergency Operations Center to monitor the safety of area roadways. Please be patient; buses may be delayed for the next several days because of detours or road closures due to the storm. Drivers will pick up students as closely as possible to their regular bus stop. Please plan for buses to potentially be running later than usual as drivers may have to navigate alternate routes due to road conditions.

Teams of custodians, both from the school that served as a shelter and surrounding schools, are sanitizing and reorganizing the shelter schools. The schools and classrooms will be clean and ready for students to return on Monday.

Yes, All students in Hillsborough County Public Schools (HCPS) will be provided free meals through October 20th.

In the wake of Hurricane Irma, HCPS and the United States of Department of Agriculture (USDA) want to assist our families by providing free meals to all students through the USDA's National School Lunch Program.

Whether your child goes to school with a packed lunch or purchases their meal at school, all meals — breakfast and lunch — will be free.

Only complete meals are free; À la carte items will still be available for purchase but are not included in this temporary free full meal offer provided by the Student Nutrition Services department.

Employees have already been paid for Thursday, September 7th and Friday, September 8th in the 9/15 paycheck that was issued a week early on 9/8.

You will be paid for all time off this week until classes resume.

If you can't make it into work once classes resume, you will have to use a sick/personal day for each day you are out. To reiterate, that does not impact you getting paid for the days prior to classes resuming.

Schools to Reopen Thursday, September 14th.

As you know, our schools are crucial to our community. We have shown this importance during an emergency – when more than 40 of our schools sheltered our neighbors – and now we are ready to show it as our community returns to normal life.

Reopening schools promptly is a key part of getting our entire community back to a sense of normalcy. Our schools provide a reliable source of nearly 300,000 nutritious meals for students every day – in some cases, those are a student’s only meals that day.

When our schools are open, parents are able to deal with recovering from the storm or return to work, making the income they need right now and helping to get our area’s economy going again. And when schools are open, we have students not falling behind on learning and we avoid possibly needing to make up additional missed mandatory classroom time with calendar changes later in the year.

After gathering information from Hillsborough County emergency managers, TECO Energy, and other partners, I have decided Hillsborough County schools will reopen on Thursday, September 14, 2017.

We need four main things to reopen schools, all of which we expect to be in place by Thursday morning:

Structurally sound schools – We are aware of no major damage at our schools; dedicated crews will clean and repair many smaller issues over the next two days.

Electrical power in schools – We are in continual contact with TECO Energy and as power crews bring areas of Hillsborough County back online, more schools will have electricity. The percentage of our schools with power is constantly changing.

Educational and support staff – About 75% of our teachers and staff have told us they are nearby or expect to be in our area and able to be at school on Thursday morning. During this storm recovery period, staff and teachers who are unable to return by Thursday will be able to use available personal or sick days for time missed. We will be creative during this unique time to staff our classrooms, supplementing classroom teachers with non-classroom staff and administrators as needed. Our campuses will be open Wednesday for any teachers or staff who voluntarily wish to come in and check on their schools or rearrange their classrooms – this is entirely optional.

Students ready to learn – School offers a reliable, familiar place for children during uncertain times; if students are not able to return by Thursday, schools will offer excused absences and opportunities for make-up work.

All athletic contests set to take place through Sunday, September 17 will be rescheduled or canceled.

On Tuesday evening, I will assess the situation again to ensure that our schools will have power and be ready to open Thursday morning. Schools will only reopen if they are safe.

You may have questions that are not answered in this message. We have created a frequently asked questions page with many more answers at this link: www.sdhc.k12.fl.us/irma-resources

You can also reach out to your principal or site manager for more information.

To our Hillsborough Schools team, thank you all for your incredible work before and during Hurricane Irma. We’ve helped protect and feed our neighbors, and now it’s time to get back to the way we serve our community best: preparing students for life.

With appreciation,

Jeff Eakins

Schools to Reopen Monday, September 18th.

After a detailed update from TECO at the county’s Emergency Operations Center, Superintendent Eakins has moved school opening in Hillsborough County to Monday, September 18, when all schools should have power.

Employees who have been specifically called in are doing an incredible job cleaning and repairing our schools. While many schools were damaged in some way, none have any major structural damage.

Employees do not need to report to work unless they are specifically called in to work. However, campuses will be open Friday for staff to voluntarily come check on their school or reorganize classrooms – this is entirely voluntary.

All athletics and activities are canceled through Sunday, September 17.

You may have questions that are not answered in this message. We have created a frequently asked questions page with many more answers at this link: www.sdhc.k12.fl.us/irma-resources

You can also reach out to your principal or site manager for more information.

Thank you for your patience as we work to prepare our schools after the storm.

With appreciation,

Jeff Eakins

School Make Up Time Due to Hurricane Irma

Hillsborough County Public Schools will convert four Early Release Days into regular school days to make up for missed classroom time due to Hurricane Irma.

School will NOT dismiss an hour early on these Mondays: October 23rd, October 30th, November 6th, and November 13th. Those will be full-length days.

This change to these four Monday Early Release Days in a row will allow students at all grade levels to meet the state's requirements for time spent in class during the first semester.

Seven school days were missed because of Hurricane Irma. But Hillsborough County Public Schools builds additional instructional time into its calendar each year. That extra time allows our district to make up all of its state-required time with this change of making four Early Release Days into normal days.

Changing Early Release Days was the most popular option by far in a survey directed toward district staff last week, with 78% of respondents saying it was their preferred option to make up for missed time.

The district's leadership recognizes that Early Release Days provide valuable planning time for teachers, so this option was coordinated with the Hillsborough Classroom Teachers Association, to make sure it would preserve other teacher work days and vacation days, while also allowing our students to get the class time they need.

Some of our elementary schools are Extra Reading Time schools. Those schools will have a separate schedule change, which will be shared in a message sent to those schools.

School Make Up Time for ERT Schools Due to Hurricane Irma

To make up for missed classroom time due to Hurricane Irma, Extra Reading Time schools will use their normal Tuesday through Friday schedules on four Mondays in a row, starting October 23rd.

Instead of dismissing at 1:15 and 3:20 for different grade levels, all grades will dismiss at 2:25 on October 23rd, October 30th, November 6th, and November 13th.

This change to these four consecutive Monday Early Release Days will allow students at all grade levels to meet the state's requirements for time spent in class during the first semester.

Seven school days were missed because of Hurricane Irma. But Hillsborough County Public Schools builds additional instructional time into its calendar each year. That extra time allows our district to make up all of its state-required time with this change of making four Early Release Days into normal days.

Changing Early Release Days was the most popular option by far in a survey directed toward district staff last week, with 78% of respondents saying it was their preferred option to make up for missed time.

The district's leadership recognizes that Early Release Days provide valuable planning time for teachers, so this option was coordinated with the Hillsborough Classroom Teachers Association, to make sure it would preserve other teacher work days and vacation days, while also allowing our students to get the class time they need.

Some of our elementary schools are Extra Reading Time schools. Those schools will have a separate schedule change, which will be shared in a message sent to those schools.

Continuous Notification of NondiscriminationPursuant to Title VI, Title IX, Section 504/Title II and other civil rights regulations, the School District of Hillsborough County (District) does not discriminate nor tolerate harassment on the basis of race, color, ethnicity, national origin, religion, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, disability, marital status, genetic information or pregnancy in its educational programs, services or activities, or in its hiring or employment practices; and it will take immediate action to eliminate such harassment, prevent its recurrence, and address its effects. The District also provides equal access to its facilities to the Boy Scouts and other patriotic youth groups, as required by the Boy Scouts of America Equal Access Act.

Website Accessibility StatementThe School District of Hillsborough County is committed to providing websites that are accessible to all of our stakeholders. If you use assistive technology (such as a screen reader, eye-tracking device, voice recognition software, etc.) and are experiencing difficulty accessing information on this site, the following person has been designated to handle inquiries or complaints related to the functionality or inaccessibility of online content: Dr. Pansy Houghton, Executive Officer, Compliance. 813-272-4000; pansy.houghton@sdhc.k12.fl.us; Office of the Chief of Staff, 901 E. Kennedy Blvd., Tampa, Florida 33602.

As required by Section 668.6076, Florida Statutes, you are hereby notified that: Under Florida law, e-mail addresses are public records. If you do not want your e-mail address released in response to a public records request, do not send electronic mail to this entity. Instead, contact this office by phone or in writing. History.--s. 1, ch. 2006-232.